As patents on brand-name drugs expire, and generic drug use increases, the United States, Europe, and Japan will account for a smaller share of worldwide spending on prescription drugs, a report from IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics says. Yet rising incomes in countries such as Russia, China and India...

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is working to help state Medicaid programs get the best deal possible when purchasing prescription drugs. The second phase of CMS’s Medicaid retail drug price survey will poll pharmacies on a monthly basis to create a National Average Drug Acquisition Cost...

Prescription drug spending rose by $135 billion between 2001 and 2010 to comprise approximately 12 percent of the nation’s overall healthcare outlay. While drug expenditure was one of the fastest growing components of U.S. healthcare spending prior to the early 2000s, generic drugs helped reduce the rate of annual...

Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription drugs, especially new brand-named drugs, remains controversial. Some in Congress remain eager to prohibit advertising of brand-name prescription drugs to consumers in the first two years following a drug’s approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Is this a good idea or is it...

Federally mandated rebates for prescription drugs in Medicaid were expanded significantly - by $38 billion - under the new health reform law, with extraordinary financial, administrative, and compliance implications for pharmaceutical manufacturers, Medicaid health plans, and state Medicaid programs.
In a new journal article, I explain changes to the Medicaid...

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) has released its Medicare payment recommendations to Congress for 2011. In addition to specific recommendations for payment updates for fee-for-service providers and Medicare Advantage plans, MedPAC's report includes interesting information and analysis on spending trends, consequences of rapid spending on Medicare and the...

Here are articles from the latest issue of American Health & Drug Benefits. AHDB is a peer-reviewed journal for 30,000 decision makers in health plans, PBMs, Medicare, Medicaid, and the pharma and biotech industries:
Orphan Drug Pricing and Payer Management in the United States: Are We Approaching the Tipping Point?...

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The Piper Report blog on healthcare business and policy covers issues in Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act, with articles, interviews, resources, primers, book reviews, and more. Edited by Kip Piper, MA, FACHE.